A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.

attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler.

I first published that quote nearly two years ago.  I thought it was true then… perhaps even truer now.

The Congressional Budget Office said Thursday that 45 million people in 2011 received Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, a 70% increase from 2007. It said the number of people receiving the benefits, commonly known as food stamps, would continue growing until 2014.

via WSJ.

And there is this:

Out of the 143 million tax returns that were filed with the IRS in 2010, 58 million – or 41 percent – of those filers were non-payers.

In other words, only 85 million actually paid taxes.

via CNSNews.com.

We cannot — and will not — survive when ‘net givers’ are outnumbered by ‘net takers’.  Two days ago I wrote that a record number of Americans have renounced their citizenship.  The U.S. is dealing with intellectual flight of massive proportions.  We are facing a perfect storm of breakdowns in both the economy and society.  The poor rarely have the ability, the means, to leave.  The rich however can easily move to wherever they like.

We are only a few bad decisions away from the wheels falling completely off the bus.